Bottle
by Krombopulos-Will
Summary: Kink Meme fill. Specific warnings before every chapter. When the League of Villains kidnaps Bakugou, they don't just try to convince him through talking. They show him visions of how his life might have played out, mostly involving Deku, in an attempt to convince him he's a villain at heart. Complete.
1. Chapter 1

_How dare this Frankenstein's monster-looking piece of shit put his hands on me? _thinks Bakugou. _I'll personally murder him. I'll do it right now, and I'll make some healing-Quirked fuckwad bring him back to life so I can murder him again._ The villain drags Bakugou backward by the throat. Bakugou can feel a temperature difference — the warm forest air on his ankles replaced with air conditioning. In front of him, fucking Deku rushes at him with two broken arms. The last thing Bakugou needs is this pathetic weakling showing him up by "saving" him when he can take care of his goddamn self. "Don't come... Deku!" he squeezes out of his constricted throat. Deku will not embarrass him again.

The warp completes. Bakugou sees a bar around him. The building has brick walls that would turn hot as an oven with his explosions and cook the row of villains staring at him. Bottles of alcohol line one wall, ready for ignition. "Die, all of you! It's gonna be payday at the morgue real soon with you fuckers! I hope you reserved your fucking grave plots because I'm gonna massacre you! By the time- mmgghmph!" The stupid grave-bait with the top hat shoves a rag into his mouth while the stitch-faced shitbag still holds his neck. A grey and black masked man holds his hands still so he can't use his Quirk. If he can just tug his hands free before they get to those belts the lizard guy's dragging out, he could kill them all. Make them regret this stunt. He takes another look at the alcohol, thinking about how easy it would be to blast this shithole halfway to the moon.

The guy with the hands all over his body orders the others around. They strap Bakugou to a chair. Giant concrete shackles envelop his hands. _Everybody who sees me this way will die, no exceptions, _he thinks. _The grim reaper's gonna have his hands full tonight._

"Is he really the best one to kidnap?" asks the guy in the grey mask. He appears to answer his own question with, "I think he'll make a great Villain!"

_Like hell I'll make a great Villain, _thinks Bakugou, straining against his bonds. These morons' cooked intestines will be welded to the wall. His tongue pushes against the rag and works it out of his mouth, but he keeps quiet for now, knowing the rag might return. He seethes and glares at them all.

"Do you ever think about how little UA is helping you?" asks the magician dude. "You're stuck in a class with people well beneath you. Somebody like you shouldn't be in the same group as a creep with grape hair, or an invisible girl, or." He pauses. "Izuku Midoriya."

Bakugou spits at the ground. He thinks, _These guys must have serious brain damage if they think they're going to get me, the future all-time top hero, to be a villain._

The guy being permanently slapped by a big dumb hand decides it's his turn to blather. "I heard UA tested you guys recently, to see how much stronger everybody's Quirk became over the semester. The answer was 'not at all.'" Bakugou couldn't tell for certain but it felt like Hand Face was smirking.

"If it were up to me, all the teachers would be fired for that. They said you all improved in 'other ways' but can't any school teach you history and math? You got into the most elite school to level up your Quirk, not to waste time on pointless academic exercises. With us, you can become much stronger." He stands between Bakugou and the row of alcoholic drinks (grenades). _He's gonna be first to fry._

"Why don't you take off my restraints and find out?" Bakugou asks.

"In good time. We have to present our full argument, so you can understand where we're coming from."

_Oh, so they want to torture me_, he thinks. He glares, waiting for them to do their worst. One thing UA trained him for is the misery of listening to people drone on and on for hours about shit he doesn't care about.

The lizard guy speaks up. "The world will stay complacent about profiteer heroes who don't care about the people they save so long as nothing _too_ tragic occurs in the average citizen's life. We must destroy the false heroes to jostle the public out of their complacency. Some villainy is necessary to create a society of true heroes. Will you resist the current corrupt order, or will you join it and keep heroes free of heroics?"

Bakugou grinds his teeth. _They'll hear plenty from me once they let me go._

Hand Face talks again. "You can't surpass All Might while staying under his thumb as a hero, child. We can give you a path toward becoming the best. Answer carefully; I don't like to hear a no."

Bakugou doesn't dignify him with an answer. If they want to fight him, he can fight, but he's not playing their word games.

"I can make him talk," the lizard says, grinning. He reaches for his weapon.

Hand Face shakes his head. "Let's not damage his appearance. He could be a publicity power up for us, but only if he appears intact."

Bakugou can't take keeping quiet anymore. "Come attack me without these restraints and you'll see how long your skin stays on!"

Hand Face sighs. "If you won't listen to us the normal way, we'll have to change your mind by altering your psychology. I've exchanged some emails with your former friends and classmates, so I know your weak points. I'll give you a night to think about it. Then you can decide whether you're willing to work with us."

"I'll kill you all first and blow this place up! They'll dust your ashes off the rubble in the street!"

"Leave him here for now. He can scream himself out. Let's check on that 'project down south' we were working on," says Hand Face to the pulsing pillar of purple smoke. He makes a gesture while mentioning the project, some symbol the mass of fog would understand and Bakugou wouldn't.

"Cowards! I'll get out of here and you'll be patches of carbon on the pavement!" Bakugou yells as they walk into Fog Guy's portal. Then he's alone. _I wish I'd been able to struggle out of my bonds before they left_, Bakugou thinks. _I could have murdered them all_.

He rocks from side to side in his chair, hoping to tip it over and move at least move one thing. Maybe break the back. If he can get rid of his bonds, it's the end of the road for the villains — if they aren't too scared to come back and face him, that is.

His fury at the villains keeps him awake for what he reckons is most of the night, but there aren't any windows so he can't tell. He tries to make plans but can't think of anything he can do tied up like this except rock the chair more. Stupid fucking chair. It stays sturdy. His eyes shut and his head slumps.


	2. Chapter 2

This chapter contains suicide and a corpse. Bakugou starts out thinking some shitty things, but will get better through the rest of the fic.

* * *

Bakugou wakes up in bed, disoriented. Where's the chair? The bar? The League of Villains? He's at his home. Did they drop him off here or what?

He gets up, murders his tooth germs, and fluffs up his hair, which had flattened on one side from sleep. Mom screams at him to go to breakfast. He shouts back, "I know!"

It all seems so normal. Nobody's freaking out about him coming home late or arriving in the hands of villains. Maybe that'll come later, at breakfast. Bakugou heads over to the table where his parents already sit.

He wants to say, "Did anything fucky happen last night?"

His mouth doesn't move. What's going on? He tries to open it and ask the question again. His mouth does talk, but it's normal breakfast teasing with his family. Mom tells him to die, he tells her to die, the usual.

Nobody brings up the subject, including Bakugou. He strains against his mouth to try and open it, but it's like his body isn't his own, even though he's acting like he usually does. It pisses him off. He even tries to blow up the kitchen table, but his power isn't his anymore. His body gets up. It grabs his stuff and heads off for school — the wrong way.

It walks to his middle school - the big den of losers he had to put up with enough to not get expelled. Is his body under the control of the villains? Bakugou pulls against the shackles of his flesh to do anything — to hold his breath, blink, twitch a finger — but he can't. He's a passenger in his own body.

Like Shinso's Quirk! It takes Bakugou longer than he cares to admit to remember Shinso because Shinso's a boring guy who does nothing to stand out or succeed.

_He's a twig beneath my feet_, thinks Bakugou. _Even weakling Deku kicked his ass._ Bakugou has a theory now. The villains must have kidnapped Shinso too. Then Shinso asked him a question in his sleep and he sleep-answered. The villains must have been controlling him through Shinso all morning. He guesses they want him to blow up his old middle school or something.

_Now that I know what's happening, I can break control,_ Bakugou thinks. _If deku can break it, obviously I can break it even faster. _He tries with every last explosion of willpower and his Quirk, but nothing happens. Eventually he arrives at school. He walks to class, still raging against his body.

In class he notices the third strange thing, after waking up at home and being unable to control his body. All the students here should already be in high school. They're his old classmates. Deku is here, and Bakugou's old friends Hino and Etsuji. He wants to ask them what the fuck's happening, but of course he can't move his mouth.

The teacher asks which students here want to get into UA. Now he realizes he's reliving the worst day of his life. The day he was captured by a sludge villain and then humiliated in public, on camera, while _Deku _of all people tried to rush in and save him. Deku's heroics in front of the massive crowd make today worse than his League of Villains capture. Now he realizes this is nothing Shinso did. Bakugou must be in some twisted illusion crafted by the villains. He tries to scream to make them let him out, but he can't; he's too busy yelling at everybody for thinking they can ever be heroes with their shitty Quirks. Like that guy who can take his eyes out of their sockets, what the hell's he gonna do? Of course the worst of all is Deku, who at that point was Quirkless and yet thought he had the same shot Bakugou did. It still boils Bakugou's blood that Deku was able to get in, to cheat his way out of his correct place at the bottom of the natural hierarchy.

Bakugou wonders whether the ooze monster is rampaging through town in the simulation, or if only the people he can see exist. By the end of the school day, he still hasn't broken out of the disconnect between his brain and his body. He picks on Deku for a while, destroying one of his notebooks and saying he better not get into UA. Bakugou wishes the little crybaby had heeded him back then, gone home to his mom, and not bothered applying.

Then Bakugou tells Deku to kill himself. The way he says it, taunting Deku to do try for a Quirk in his next life by jumping off the roof, makes Bakugou chuckle to himself. That day wasn't _all_ bad.

Deku turns to face him, angry tears in his eyes. Pathetic.

"Yeah?" Bakugou asks. His hand crackles with fire. "What?"

Deku doesn't say anything, just stands there shaking, his fists clenched, while Bakugou leaves the classroom with his friends. Bakugou wishes he could make his friends take a different route now, so they can avoid the monster. But this is all an illusion. He has no choice where he goes.

When they reach the school exit and step outside, the day Bakugou remembers changes. A scream echoes through the school grounds and parking lot.

"What's that?" asks Hino.

"Hell if I know," Bakugou says. His body says it at the same time. _Am I in control?_ he thinks. He tries to use his Quirk and fails.

"Let's go check it out," says Etsuji.

The three of them walk toward the source of the ongoing screaming. What the hell's going on? It kind of sounds like Deku. They round a corner to the school's concrete koi pond. There he is. His legs bend up unnaturally toward the fish pond and his head rests on the concrete ground, screaming.

"Let's get out of here," Bakugou tries to say, but his body keeps walking toward Deku. What happened? This isn't how the day is supposed to go.

Deku's head bleeds heavily. The screaming stops when Bakugou walks closer, replaced by rasping coughs. Flecks of blood shoot out of his mouth. Classmates and passers by gather around, pointing and whispering.

Deku's eyes look up at Bakugou.

"I'm sorry… Kacchan," he says. He coughs up a glob of blood and falls unconscious.

Bakugou continues to stare. _I didn't think he would actually do it! Not my fault. Not my fault._ _What if my friends report to the cops that I told Deku to kill himself? It's NOT my fault!_ His thoughts scramble in circles. He remembers he's in a simulation, an illusion, and shakes the fear off. He's not going to prison, any more than he's already in a prison fashioned by the villains.

Whatever. He doesn't give a shit about their stupid illusion. And even if it were real he extra doesn't give a shit about Deku. Let him die. All he ever did was try and drag Bakugou away from being the greatest hero ever.

"C'mon, guys, let's go," Bakugou says to his old friends. He doesn't know if he _wanted _to say that or not. When he turns away from Deku, he doesn't look back. Hino and Etsuji's footsteps don't follow him when he finishes shoving through the crowd. "Come _on_," he says again. Still no friends behind him. His Quirk crackles in his hands. He doesn't know if his new body, the him who isn't him, wants to use it or can't help it. _I want out of this damn thing_, he thinks.

Bakugou's body walks randomly through the streets of Musutafu, speeding up from walking to speed-walking to jogging. Do the villains making this simulation think he would care that much about Deku offing himself? Or maybe his body's running now because he's worried the police would get involved. He should have insisted harder on Hino and Etsuji following him. He reminds himself it doesn't matter because the world isn't real. Maybe the villains didn't even bring him to their lair and he's still at the Wild Wild Pussycats' ranch.

Bakugou wonders if he can still control his body back wherever the villains are holding him. "Fuck you! Die!" he shouts internally, and he tries to use his Quirk. Hopefully he's searing somebody or at least damaging valuable equipment. If they're smart, though, they'll still have him restrained.

Maybe he can still do something in this simulation to prove himself. An act of heroism to show the villains who he really is. He hurries through a tunnel beneath a small overpass.

Bakugou's thoughts are interrupted by a remark about wanting to hide in his body. The sludge monster oozes in the tunnel. Unfair that his body's nowhere near where he originally met this scumbag and yet it still came for him. He can deal with unfair, though. He raises his hands toward it and blasts it with flame.

The villain continues like he's blasting it with confetti. It writhes around his shoes and slithers up his legs. He kicks and explodes at it to no avail. At least Deku isn't here to see him this time. He knows now how to predict this villain's patterns, but his body falls into the same traps, punching against the ooze only to have his fists sucked in.

It takes minutes of kicking and screaming before he's reduced to the state he was in when All Might saved him the first time: desperately tearing a hole open for his head.

The goo pulsates. Soon he can't even push his head out anymore. The sludge forces itself down his throat. He gags and coughs at the stretching of his esophagus. His Quirk fires again and again to no effect. It fills his nose, too. He can't breathe. Even though he can't control his body, he can still feel its sensations. The monster's slimy grit feels like sandpaper in his throat. His arms and legs flail to get it off him so he can get air. The taste is nauseating, like he bit into a deflated, moldy tomato.

The last bits of monster squish down his throat. He can breathe and see the tunnel around him again. Was this what the villain would have done if All Might hadn't stepped in? The aftertaste makes him want to vomit. His stomach roils, but he stands calmly, wipes off his lips, and walks out of the tunnel.

"Fear not, kid!" says a voice from underground. Bakugou stares at the manhole cover the sound came from. It shoots into the air at breathtaking speed. All Might rises from the hole, his smile gleaming in the afternoon sun. "I am here!"

Bakugou isn't afraid. He's furious and humiliated because All Might has to save him again but he isn't afraid. "Nothing's going on here," his body says. Now he's under two layers of control. The illusion is controlling his body and so is the sludge monster within the illusion.

"Huh?" says All Might. With his super speed, he flits under and over the tunnel. He peers behind bushes. "There was a report of a sludge monster heading this way earlier. You haven't seen anything?"

"No," he says. Damnit, damnit, damnit!

"I must go, now. Continue on your path safely, young man!"

All Might turns around to jump. "Fuck you," Bakugou says. He lunges forward and vomits a stream of sludge monster at All Might. It wraps around All Might's legs, stopping him from jumping. Again the nauseating, rotten taste clogs Bakugou's mouth.

Bakugou doesn't know what this dumbass villain is thinking, because of course it can't hold All Might down. All Might grabs a soda bottle from a nearby trash can. He kicks and punches the monster until it blows up into thousands of tiny droplets. Then he runs in circles, whipping up a tornado that lifts the drops of muck and funnels them into the soda bottle. The wind knocks Bakugou over. He uses his Quirk to avoid hitting the ground hard. The taste left in his mouth makes him retch and heave. Clear stomach fluid drips onto the cobblestones.

When he looks up, he sees All Might standing over him, staring at him. Once again his idol sees him helpless. At least this time there isn't a crowd.

"Young people like you shouldn't be associating with villains," he says. This is Bakugou's chance to say that he was being controlled against his will but he's not going to embarrass himself in front of All Might. If All Might thinks Bakugou associated with the goo monster on purpose, at least Bakugou has some dignity left. There's no honor in being a slave.

"Eat shit, old man," he says. He can't have All Might thinking of him as weak. Better All Might should hate him. _Or I guess my body says it. Hard to tell,_ he thinks.

In an instant, Bakugou is cradled in one arm while All Might holds the soda bottle in the other. All Might's still smiling. It pisses Bakugou off that All Might can grab him so easily. "Let me go! Let me fucking go!" he says, hands blasting.

All Might speaks over him. "It's sad to see a young boy with such a promising Quirk turn to the side of evil. I know you can do better! I am going to take you to the police and have them show you around. Maybe then you'll understand where this path leads." So he still thinks Bakugou's sad. There's nothing Bakugou can do to evade All Might seeing him as pathetic. All Might jumps from rooftop to rooftop, lecturing him. Bakugou keeps struggling because he's no quitter.

In front of plenty of strangers, All Might hands him over to the police while still lecturing. They tell Bakugou he's going to a barred temporary holding area. He squirms to get out. They call over other cops until five policemen escort him.

When Bakugou sits down in his holding area, the illusion ends.

* * *

Bakugou's back in the bar, back in his restraints. The change in scenery makes him dizzy. Hand Face, Fog Guy, and a glowing Nomu stand around him. All the other villains are gone. Part of him still worries what his family will think of him being in jail.

"You're already a villain, Bakugou," says Hand Face. "You just need to ally with other villains like us."

"That wasn't real, though. Your lies mean nothing to me," he says. When he recovers from the transition, he returns to thinking about how much nicer these people would be with six feet of dirt for a blanket. Forget Deku, if anybody should kill himself, it's Hand Face.

"It could have happened. He could have killed himself because of what you said. You understand that some people just aren't worth saving. You're already most of the way toward villainy. All it takes is one more choice."

"I choose to light you on fire. I can't wait to murder you all!" says Bakugou. He wonders for a moment if they're right. Even if they are, he wouldn't join this bunch of losers. Do they really think kidnapping him and doing dumb illusion crap is going to make him join them? They must think way too highly of themselves. _As soon as they leave me an opening, I'll show them how fucking moronic they are,_ he thinks.

"Maybe you need some more time to think. Would you like something to eat or drink first?"

"I'd rather eat hot, steaming shit than anything you'd want to feed me. If you let me go I could share a nice knuckle sandwich with you, though!" Bakugou suppresses a cough because now that Hand Face mentions it, he's pretty thirsty. He has too much self-respect to eat or drink while kidnapped, though.

"Very well," says Hand Face. "Let's watch the news." He pulls out a remote. A television sits on the bar counter near where the counter meets the wall.

The news is all about him. He wants to look away in embarrassment but can't make himself. If his hands weren't shackled so tightly he would even blow up the TV _before_ killing everybody in the room. UA isn't available for interview yet so they show his family and the losers who knew him in middle school. Everybody he's ever met now knows he was kidnapped. Some of them don't have anything nice to say about him. Now the part of his body he most wishes were free is his middle finger.

Hand Face turns it off when Daikaku moves on to feel-good bullshit where a hero saved a baby elephant at the zoo. When he's a hero, there'll be fewer stories like that and more stories where bad guys need skin grafts. If he can just break free, he'll make such a story happen today.

"Wouldn't you like to show them all how strong you really are? You can't without breaking the law," says Hand Face.

"I'd rather boil your innards."

Hand Face gestures to Nomu. "Why don't you show him the next scenario?"


	3. Chapter 3

Content warning for more suicide and corpses.

* * *

Bakugou wakes up again in his bed at home. This time, he knows what's happening. His body goes through the morning routine, eats with his family, and heads off to middle school. The situation progresses the same way: after class he throws out Deku's notebook and tells him to kill himself. He winces internally at the phrase, knowing where it got him last time.

Same screams, same crowd, same Bakugou walking up to check it out. This time, Deku's body looks different. A shaft of bloody bone sticks out from one of his broken arms while blood pours onto the cement. The skin on his face is half torn off from hitting the side of the koi pond.

The screams grow hoarse. Deku intersperses them with coughs. Bakugou stands at a distance. A medical team clears away the crowd. An EMT shoves Bakugou aside to get to Deku. This is, again, not his fault. Bakugou can't keep his eyes away, though. He wishes Deku would quit his fucking ragged screaming. Not like it helps anything. At least he isn't dead this time.

They haul him up onto a stretcher and wheel him into an ambulance parked on the side of the road. _Could this have happened if things had gone differently in real life? No, this is just the villains making up melodramatic bullshit to try and manipulate me. Not my fault even if it did, anyway_, thinks Bakugou.

Once the sirens die down, Bakugou hears murmurs from the students around him. "I never thought Midoriya would do this!"

"Did somebody push him?"

"The classroom was empty. I saw Bakugou, Hino, and Etsuji walk out and Midoriya was still there."

"He must have felt really bad about being Quirkless."

"Hey, what's this in the pond? It looks like one of his notebooks."

"Are there burn marks on it?"

That's Bakugou's cue to get the hell away from school. He shoves a bunch of useless classmates out of his way.

"Hey, wait, Bakugou, did you burn his notebook? And then he tried to kill himself?" says some random girl he doesn't even remember.

He turns around. "Who cares? Deku's just some extra. Thinks he's better than he is. Wish he would have done it right and died." Would he have said that? _Probably._

"What the hell, Bakugou, didn't you just see him bleeding on the pavement like that? What's wrong with you?"

"There's nothing wrong with me," he says. "I just don't give a fuck about lesser people like him — and like you."

"That's like something a villain would say."

Some other guy says, "Why would you say that after what we just saw?"

"Are you planning on being a villain? Is that why you want to go to UA?"

"I don't think UA should let him in. They shouldn't train a psychopath."

Bakugou pushes them all away with a blast of fire. They just don't get it. Deku isn't worth all this bullshit. Obviously he doesn't want Deku to die, but he shouldn't have to care about Deku. He shoots his fire at the ground to launch into the air where none of these freaks can keep touching him.

Hino is on fire when Bakugou looks down. "Roll around on the ground, you moron!" says Bakugou. The crowd stares at Bakugou and Hino, who screams just like Deku did. _What have I gotten myself into?_ He shoots himself higher and falls, again and again, because he doesn't want to be down there with them and his Quirk doesn't let him hover.

"Someone call an ambulance again!" a girl says. Hino's running around burning and screaming. Some of the grass around him on the school lawn catches fire. The wind from Bakugou's blasts fans and spreads the flames.

The crowd starts running off to escape the growing fire. Bakugou flies onto the school roof. This is his chance to be a hero and save people like All Might, but his body doesn't move. He thinks, _I wouldn't just sit here and watch! The villains are showing me a lie._

Emergency vehicles arrive at the scene carrying medical staff and heroes with water Quirks who extinguish the fires. Bakugou can't leave the roof now or he'll be arrested for using his Quirk without a license and setting a classmate and the school lawn on fire. He sits down on the cool concrete roof and waits. They'll find him eventually. He can only watch as the _real _heroes assist the injured.

He doesn't notice All Might coming until All Might's shadow falls over him. All Might tells him that he needs to come with him. Bakugou struggles and screams that it's not his fault. To impress on Bakugou what he did, All Might lets him know that both Hino and Deku will stay in the hospital for months - if they make it through the night.

"That's their business!" Bakugou yells.

Once again, he's handed to the police and ends up in a holding cell, which disappears around him to reveal the villains at their bar.

* * *

"I wouldn't do those things," Bakugou says. "You guys need to try harder. Your illusions are lame and you can all go chew poison."

"Are you sure? I know you told Midoriya to kill himself," says Hand Face. He's more talkative than Fog Guy.

"He wouldn't actually do it, duh." Bakugou hates how Hand Face has him on the defensive. "And I don't give a shit about him so it doesn't matter."

"So you are a villain, then. If you agree that some people don't matter, you should be on our side."

"If you think I'm on your side, come let me out and I'll show you." Hand Face is right, though. _All Might _wouldn't say he doesn't give a shit about somebody.

"You're cracking, Bakugou. I'll show you another scenario. We'll see how long you stick to that line of thought."

Bakugou doesn't want to go back in. He doesn't want to see all that blood on the pavement again, with everybody saying he caused it. "Isn't the definition of insanity trying something that doesn't work over and over again? Or maybe it's stupidity I'm thinking of. Anyway, I have to piss." Maybe they'll let their guard down and he can escape. They seem like the type to fuck up and leave loopholes; he just needs to find out where.

Fog Guy, Hand Face, and Nomu walk over to him. "Untie him from the chair," says Hand Face to Nomu. Hand Face and Fog Guy hold him still as Nomu unties him. The restraints enveloping his hands remain. He stands up. On another command, Nomu moves his legs apart so his stance widens. It starts pulling down his pants. _Oh god, this thing isn't going to touch my penis, is it?_ thinks Bakugou. "Lay one finger on my dick and I swear I will make everybody's death here slow, painful, and humiliating."

"We don't want you peeing your pants while you're in a simulation. Would you rather that happen?" asks Fog Guy.

"I wouldn't do that. You guys are sick in the head." But the image is there now in Bakugou's brain. He can't struggle because he doesn't want to return to the chair half naked. He doesn't even want to break out of here half naked. When he fights, it has to be in a way that shows how he's powerful and better than everybody. There's no way to do that with his pants down.

"Bring the basin between his legs, above his pants," says Hand Face. What the fuck. They aren't even gonna let him have a toilet? He wants to insult them but complaining would count as mentioning the situation he's in. This is a no-win scenario. Pissing on command would be humiliating and not pissing on command would be pathetic and unsustainable. Best to just show how much he doesn't care. Even when he's finished and they take the basin away and tie him up, he can't thrash around. Because what if he hits the basin? Then he's just an animal throwing piss all over its cage. As soon as he's back in the chair, the next illusion starts.


	4. Chapter 4

This chapter contains torture.

* * *

He's in his room again. He wishes he could stay here and not go back to the school. Not being in control of his body is worse than all the suicide scenarios the villains can cook up.

Same breakfast, same school, same suicide taunt in the classroom. After the suicide taunt, though, something changes. "Hino, Etsuji, you go on without me. I'm gonna teach Deku more of a lesson," Bakugou says.

"Come on, man, we all have better things to do," says Hino.

"I'll meet you guys at the sushi cafe. I have some business with Deku here." He didn't do this in real life. At least, it isn't in his memories. And it wasn't in the other couple of scenarios. The other scenarios, aside from the obvious departures, were true to life. So he probably didn't stay later in real life. Hino and Etsuji slowly back out the door to the classroom, leaving him alone with Deku.

Bakugou stomps over to him and shoves him against the wall next to the open window. "I'm not gonna tolerate you applying to UA," he says. "Your name would taint the application registry. I'll make sure you can't even apply."

Tears fall from Deku's eyes. Fuck him for crying. Bakugou leans against Deku with the side of his body to keep Deku pinned to the wall and grabs Deku's right hand. His left hand keeps Deku's hand steady while his right grabs Deku's index finger and pulls back. With a gruesome crack, Deku's finger snaps out of place. A red welt swells at the base of his dangling finger. Deku screams. His face is a mess of tears and snot. Bakugou is so sick of having to listen to Deku screaming.

_I wouldn't do this. This is blatant villain shit. I wouldn't torture people. I only fight fairly. Right? And I didn't do this, I never did this, _Bakugou thinks, but there's no time to think more because his body is moving again. For Deku's middle finger, it grabs the base of his finger and the tip. It snaps the middle bone. Deku's used to having his fingers broken, right? From his Quirk? It isn't a big deal for him, right?

Bakugou's ears ache from the screaming but he continues. Finger after finger until all five are broken. Deku begs him to stop and asks him why he's doing this. Bakugou tells him to shut up. Deku tries to fight back and escape his grasp, but Bakugou's too strong. When Bakugou finishes, he wishes Deku good luck applying to UA when he doesn't have a hand that can fill out the application. Bakugou wants out of this simulation. _I wouldn't do these things because I'm not a villain. What I _would _do is kill the sick fuckers who thought this up._

Luckily for Bakugou, the simulation ends early this time, right after he leaves the classroom with Deku crying and cradling his mangled hand. Hand Face monologues for a while, then asks him if he'll join them or if he wants to see another simulation. Bakuguo doesn't want to join him but he finds his mouth saying that he will. _Am I… still in a simulation? _he thinks. He tries to use his Quirk but of course he can't because his hands are restrained. He tries to speak but he doesn't know whether it's his own hangups or the illusion that prevents him.

Everybody in the room but him appears to teleport to slightly different positions and poses. Is this part of the illusion still? Is he seeing things? Hand Face gives him the same spiel: that he would do villainous acts anyway so he might as well join them against the heroes.

"Fuck off," he says, but his heart isn't in it.

"That's not what you said earlier," says Hand Face.

"I didn't say that," says Bakugou, but he's not sure.

"Let's play another movie for you."

Bakugou cringes in spite of himself. He doesn't want any more illusions where he fucks everything up.

"Are you ready to join our side instead? No more simulations if you just accept our offer, the way you did earlier. I can see you don't like watching the movies we show you," says Hand Face. "If you want a break, we can feed you, but you won't be released from your restraints."

Bakugou would spit at him but his mouth is too dry.

"No way, I love these dumb illusions. They make me see how stupid you are and how little I want to ever have anything to do with you."


	5. Chapter 5

This chapter contains mild gore.

* * *

Bakugou's so sick of eating the same breakfast at the beginning of every simulation. Maybe they're trying to bore him to death. A feeling of dread grows inside him as he walks to school and sits through class. What is he gonna do this time? What'll happen to Deku?

Deku stands in front of him, shaking with tears in his eyes after Bakugou told him once again to kill himself. Those words are the source of misery across every illusion. This time he adds to them, "Well? Go ahead! The window's right there, you worthless freak."

Deku stares at the floor. The tears start falling. Bakugou runs up to him. Is he gonna torture Deku again? He wants out of here. His body shoves Deku at the window, then uses his Quirk to explode Deku outside after his notebook. Deku falls toward the koi pond screaming and staring up at Bakugou, who thinks, _I never want to hear that scream again._ Deku's head cracks against the pavement. Blood and brains leak out. _What have I done?_ Deku doesn't even twitch. The pool of blood beneath him expands.

Hino and Etsuji look out the window next to him. Hino throws up onto the carpet. Etsuji runs out of the classroom. Bakugou barely sees the world around him, too busy thinking, _I killed somebody. I always said I wanted to kill people, but not like this._

Bakugou darts out the door where Etsuji left. Etsuji's fast, but with the help of his Quirk, Bakugou's faster. He tackles Etsuji right before he can exit the school building. "You're thinking of telling somebody what happened, aren't you?" his body says. Bakugou doesn't like where this is going.

Etsuji's pupils are tiny. He trembles. "I'm not telling anybody! Leave me alone!"

"You think I'm some kind of moron?" Bakugou asks. "I'm not going to let you go report me to the cops. I have a hero academy to get into."

"I won't report you! Just let me go!"

Bakugou punches Etsuji's head while using his Quirk. At this close range, his Quirk can knock people out, but Etsuji remains conscious. Bakugou's body does it again with its other fist. This time Etsuji's eyes close. It punches again and again until his face rips up and its knuckles break through his skull. Its hands are slick from Etsujii's blood. He twitches a couple times, then stops breathing.

Bakugou doesn't want to see this. He enjoys a gore film as much as the next guy but not this way, not in person. Don't the villains know he doesn't mean it when he says he wants to murder people? _Or_ _do they know something I don't?_

People see him, of course. Standing over his friend's body with red hands. He can't kill them all. Some take out their cell phones. Calling the police.

"What are you looking at?" he shouts.

Students back away from him. He stares down at Etsuji and Etsuji's mangled face looks back. The onslaught burnt off one of Etsuji's eyelids and dislodged the eyeball. Bakugou's body doesn't feel sick but his mind wishes he could throw up.

Kamui Woods arrives first this time. Bakugou barely notices because he's too busy staring at Etsuji, lost in thought about how maybe he really is the kind of person who would kill Deku and Etsuji. For some reason, his mind fixates more on Deku. The scenario isn't that different from what really happened or the countless times he attacked Deku while Deku was helpless. Not that he's sure anymore what happened.

Branches lift him up and deposit him in the back of a reinforced police van. He doesn't scream or fight this time, which may be the only unrealistic part. Instead, he just stares at random points in the distance and then at the walls of the police van. His Quirk could beat Kamui's flammable wood but he doesn't bother. Maybe the villains figure he's killed enough people in this illusion. They break out a special seal that encloses his hands up to his elbows, similar to what the villains have him in.

This time they don't put him into the holding cell from before. They march him through a group of reporters to an underground, windowless chamber. A poster near the door explains how to use taps on the wall to signify a desire for food, water, the bathroom, or a lawyer because his voice will not leave the room.

Then, of course, he wakes up next to the villains. He looks down at his hands and sees the restraints. Part of him wonders if they're covered in blood underneath, but that's silly.

"You bastards know I wouldn't do this," he says, his voice cracking from thirst. "I'm a hero. I'm not one of you."

"You already did," says Hand Face. "You don't remember?"

"What the fuck do you mean?"

"You told Izuku Midoriya to kill himself, and he jumped out the window. It couldn't be pinned on you. Your family fought to keep the matter quiet. Would you like some water or food now?"

"Sure, water, whatever," Bakugou says. He can't refuse anymore. Did that really happen? No way.

Fog Guy puts a glass of water with a straw in front of Bakugou's face. He's sure it's full of crazy drugs meant to manipulate his mind but his parched throat doesn't care. He drains the glass in seconds. Some of the water goes down the wrong pipe. He splutters.

"You're full of shit. Deku tried to…" He changes his mind about saying Deku tried to rescue him. That's an embarrassing moment. With all that's happening to him, he doesn't want to admit to being even less in control of his fate, to the point where he needed Deku. "Deku got both his arms broken fighting you guys back at the camp. He helped kick your asses and got some of your people arrested. Pretty embarrassing considering how weak he is."

"That was one of our simulations. To show you what the world would be like with Deku still alive. How embarrassed you would be. How weak, siding with the heroes."

"Bullshit."

"So you did almost get rescued by him even though you were fully healthy and he had both his arms broken? That really happened?"

"Go fuck yourself," Bakugou says. There's no good way to answer that question. It would be convenient if Deku hadn't done that. Maybe he did die. Bakugou thinks, _I hate to admit it, but I hope he's alive. I hope I didn't actually cause him to die the way I keep seeing._

"Sounds like you need to watch another movie," says Hand Face. It starts before Bakugou can object. Probably good since he might have looked weak begging.


	6. Chapter 6

This chapter contains gore.

* * *

Eating breakfast with his family takes on a new sense of dread. This is the rice and tuna of foreboding, telling him that something terrible will happen today. The walk to school leaves him alone with his thoughts, which circle around past simulations. Dead and mangled Dekus, blood and bone with a background track of screaming. An expression of horror ruining Deku's handsome face. He's pretty sure Deku's alive in real life, but what if he isn't? What if one of these simulations, minus going to jail, is a memory?

Of course, Bakugou tells Deku to kill himself again. _I wish I had never said that,_ he thinks. And just like last time, he rushes up to Deku. Instead of throwing him out the window, he tackles Deku to the ground with his friends watching. This would be nothing out of the ordinary for them, since they've seen Bakugou beat up Deku plenty of times before, but he knows something else will happen in Hand Face's "movie".

Deku kicks and struggles against Bakugou. Without his Quirk (does he really get one in the future… the past?) and his training, Deku's weak. Bakugou subdues him easily. He puts his hands around Deku's neck and squeezes. This sets off a whole new round of flailing and gasping. After ten seconds, Bakugou's body gets impatient. It puts its head down by Deku's neck above its hands and bites down. Its teeth press through skin and tendons. They rip out his right carotid artery. Its hands loosen and drop to its sides. Deku screams that awful scream for a moment, then gasps. Blood squirts out onto the classroom carpet with each beat of his heart. He twitches a few times and goes still, continuing to draw in ragged breaths. The blood spurting steadily decreases until it flows loosely out and then stops altogether.

Bakugou doesn't know how long he stays looking at him. Deku's neck flesh tastes coppery and feels slimy in his mouth, so he spits onto the floor. Blood splashes, messing up Deku's face. When he glances around, his friends are gone. As with every scenario, he asks himself, _Is there a world where I would do this? For one, I'm too smart to break the law in such an obvious manner. Right now I'm practically begging to get caught. Maybe that's the point though — a part of me wants to get caught. Saved by Deku, even._

The villains have gone too far this time. For the first time, he doesn't want to scream at them or fight; he just wants to cry and maybe puke.

Policemen bust into the classroom, again accompanied by Kamui Woods. Again they take him into custody. On the trip there, he tries to steel himself against seeing the villains again but can't get the urge to sob out of his chest. Now that he knows what their war is like, he's even firmer against becoming their soldier.

* * *

"It's not so different from what you actually did," says Hand Face.

"You're wrong," says Bakugou. His voice isn't as strong as usual. Maybe because he's so hungry.

"He died anyway. You killed him. What's the difference between telling him to die and delivering the killing blow?"

Bakugou wants to say that Deku isn't dead but he's less sure than ever. He saw Deku die several times. Which parts were the villains' doing? Any time he feels like he can't control his body is part of their simulation, but that isn't so different from the restraints he's in now. Every time except maybe once that he ate that breakfast, went to middle school, and told Deku to kill himself is fake. Maybe all the times are fake and he never said that at all. He can't even tell if Hino and Etsuji are made up by the villains or if they were his actual friends. _Both times I faced the sludge monster have to be fake because I would never let such a creature defeat me, especially in front of All Might_, he decides. He also remembers killing his friends, but Deku's death weighs more heavily on him.

"How do you feel about the cops taking you into custody over and over when all you did was eliminate a couple of weaklings? Pretty unfair, right? Stick with us and we can destroy the order they uphold."

"You couldn't destroy a plastic spoon," Bakugou says. No matter what happens, the two constants in his life are his admiration for All Might and that he will never join these bastards. These are the only things he can be sure of. He knows that when he agreed to join, he was inside an illusion, especially since they keep trying to convince him. _I may be a villain at heart like they say, but I'm not one of _these _villains._

BANG! BANG! BANG! Three heavy knocks on the door.

"Nobody's supposed to be coming," says Hand Face to Fog Guy.

"Police, open up!" comes from behind the door. Two reactions fight inside Bakugou: fear at the police, who have locked him up so many times, and relief that the ordeal is over. He wants to taunt the villains, to tell them that their scheme's toast, but he can't make himself applaud the cops. The villains are once again right about where his heart lies.

"I think we're ready for them with this Nomu, aren't we?" says Hand Face. "We don't need to retreat now, but be prepared just in case."

The door to the bar falls inward onto the floor. Kamui Woods stands in the doorway. Part of Bakugou feels angry at Kamui for all the times Kamui grabbed him to help the police capture him. But Kamui's a hero, so Bakugou should be supporting him.

It's embarrassing for a bunch of heroes and cops to see Bakugou bound in a chair. Whatever, he just needs to get out of here. Something stops him from crying for help. The tatters of his dignity, perhaps.

Kamui wraps his branches around Hand Face. The branches wither and die as soon as they touch him. Kamui swears. Hand Face snaps his fingers and points toward the hero and policemen in the door. Nomu barrels forward. It tackles Kamui Woods and five of the cops behind him. The cops grunt and scream and fire their guns. Bakugou hears the snapping of rib cages under Nomu's feet. Nomu walks on top of Kamui Woods, who wraps branches around the legs holding him down. The two of them block the doorway so no more cops can enter. Hand Face strolls up to Kamui Woods, kneels down, and places his hands on Kamui's face.

Kamui screams. He tries to whip more branches around Hand Face, but those branches wither into dust too. Hand Face presses his hands deeper and deeper into Kamui's head. The screaming stops. Only when his hands push through Kamui's head and thump the floor does Hand Face stop.

Hand Face stares at Bakugou and says, "Which side do you want to be on? The weak side? Or the strong side?" He uses his power to disintegrate the branches around Nomu's legs.

Bakugou doesn't dignify him with an answer. Or, at least, his brain doesn't.

"I guess you guys are strong," he says, which he would never say.

Does this mean he's inside another illusion? When did it start? There's not much he can do to test whether he has control of his body when he's restrained like this. Maybe he should see if he can whisper a random word. He tries "Deku" and it doesn't work. That word may be too emotionally fraught. Next he tries "bottle" because he can see them in the bar. Also doesn't work. So this is another of their mind games. He'll just have to wait it out.

Nomu slaughters every cop who enters. The rest figure it out and retreat. Nomu continues stomping on their bodies to make sure they won't get back up. Bakugou sees Deku in every corpse by the entrance.

Hand Face calls Nomu off. He orders Nomu to hoist the corpses into Fog Guy, who warps them away to who knows where. Kamui Woods is the last to warp. His face has a hole eaten through it. The edges are rotten and decayed. He's in several pieces because some of his limbs were eaten away by Hand Face's Quirk.

"There are only two ways to live your life," says Hand Face. "You can join us and become stronger as a villain. Be a player character, able to do what you want. Or you can be like the heroes, suffocated by their own ideals, and ultimately die at level one. Are you going to let somebody like Kamui Woods take you to jail just for teasing Deku? Or will you man up, like we have here, and destroy the heroes?"

Hand Face is obviously an idiot here. All Might's a hero and he's anything but weak. Hand Face has tried several times to kill him and failed.

_I'm going to be like All Might, not like these clowns._

"I don't want to be weak," his body says. What wishy-washy language. He's _not_ weak.

"Stick with us, and you will become stronger." Hand Face pushes the last few branches into Fog Guy's head. "For now, I think we should leave you to your thoughts." He turns off the lights. The two of them exit through the warp gate, leaving Nomu behind with Bakugou.

"Bottle," Bakugou mutters. The illusion is over. He's alone here for real again. His stomach feels sick from hunger. He squirms in his restraints.

When did the illusion start? As soon as the other one ended? Sometime in the middle of the attack? Maybe there was no attack. After all, why would they leave this place with only a dumb Nomu guard if the police knew the location? The cops, and more importantly, the heroes, don't give up. A hiding or masking Quirk could prevent them from returning, though.

"Deku," Bakugou says. He's glad he can speak the word. He has no idea if Deku is dead or alive. If he's alive, what does he think of Bakugou after all Bakugou's done to him? Did Bakugou break his fingers one by one? Cause him to ride away in an ambulance? The villains seem sure he's dead by Bakugou's hands, but he can't believe anything they say.

"Deku?" Bakugou asks. "Are you alive?" _What am I thinking? He can't hear me either way._

"Bottle," Bakugou says again. He never knows. His body could lose control at any time, trapped in another illusion. He keeps repeating it to himself but talking just makes him thirsty. It's hard to get to sleep with his hunger distracting him. Every time he tries to really think about how to escape, his thoughts turn back to how this might be an illusion again and he repeats his word. Or else he thinks about Deku and wonders what really happened to him. How many days has he been here? He only remembers sleeping once but he might have slept before some of the illusions. Eventually, he manages a half-hearted sleep with his dreams fading in and out of his thoughts.


	7. Chapter 7

This chapter contains heavy gore.

* * *

Bakugou wakes up in his old bed. He wants to scream. Not again. Can't say "bottle." All through breakfast, walking to school, and class he's on edge. If there were only something he could _do_ about his situation, instead of having to just wait and see what they have prepared for him. The hunger from his real body vaguely filters through the illusion, resulting in a dull ache.

He tackles Deku to the floor again, but this time he doesn't strangle him or bite his neck. Instead he pushes his finger into one of Deku's eyeballs, smashes through the cornea, and digs around in the vitreous fluid. Deku's never gonna see with that eye again. Bakugou wants to look away. Inside he's shouting, "No, no, no!" Deku screams of course, Bakugou's least favorite sound. That scream's gonna stick with him forever.

"What the hell, man?" asks Etsuji. Bakugou's body ignores him. Hino is already gone.

His body pokes through Deku's other eye. It wipes the slime off on his black school uniform. "You aren't applying anywhere. I'll make sure of it. You're already worthless, but now you'll have to admit it," it says. It already blinded him, so shouldn't it be getting up now?

Bakugou's body pinches the skin of Deku's lower right eyelid and pulls until it rips down his cheek. Etsuji screams and runs from the room. Deku keeps screaming and thrashing, but that doesn't affect its actions. It digs through the bloody skin ripped out of his cheek and tears more off. It's skinning him alive. Deku stops screaming but keeps breathing, perhaps passed out from the pain. He's proven an abnormally high pain tolerance before. In the UA Sports Festival (was that an illusion, too?) he smashed all his fingers, some of them twice, and still kept talking. But now, with chunks of his face coming out, he lies still. Bakugou's finger pokes through his mangled lower cheek and into his mouth, landing on his tongue. Disgusting.

Deku coughs and splutters. Bakugou's body begins on the other half of his face, again peeling his skin from his eyelid. Its hands are red down to the wrists. It rips upward, too. His upper eyelids don't peel as much skin off with them, so it digs its fingers against his skull to better skin his forehead. Bakugou thinks about the Frankenstein-face guy who dragged him into the villains' bar in the first place. _Maybe he had this done to him._ _God I wish I could close my eyes, just like Deku won't be able to again_. Rivulets of blood drip onto the classroom carpet. The room reeks of copper.

When Bakugou's body peels enough skin off Deku's forehead, all the skin under his hairline and beyond comes off more easily. Deku's breathing is erratic now. It works lower, digging the skin off his chin now. _What would ever drive me to do this? _Bakugou thinks. His hunger vanishes — he doesn't think he can ever eat again. The blood on the carpet spreads to a large pool that soaks into Deku's school uniform. More blood pools in his scalp.

When it digs the skin off Deku's neck, Deku stops breathing but it keeps going. The stench of Deku's shit joins the blood. Bakugou feels disgust not only at the situation but at himself because he can't know that some part of him wouldn't do this. All the other illusions have had a seed of reality. He wants to say this one doesn't, but how can he be sure? When he asks what kind of monster would do this, he sees his own hands mangling Deku's neck.

This time, Kamui Woods doesn't come for Bakugou. Best Jeanist and Eraserhead arrive instead. He fights back but the threads stop him from moving too much. Eraserhead prevents him from burning it all off. Best Jeanist looks horrified at Deku's mutilated corpse. "You don't see villains this bad in middle school too often," he says.

Eraserhead shrugs. "The worst of them have to start off somewhere." The two of them walk Bakugou to a police van, the armored one from before. Part of him is relieved — at least the illusion will be over. Most of him still feels humiliated at being defeated and locked up, just like he is outside the illusion. His hands get put into concrete shells that cover them completely, blocking his Quirk. The shells are attached to thick chains on the wall of the van. He screams and bangs against the walls of the van, but nothing changes his position and he just look like a madman. Maybe he is.

Some of Best Jeanist's fabric falls to the floor. Bakugou remembers… he hated Best Jeanist at one point, because Best Jeanist made his hair look different. That seems so silly and far away now. The real world is distant, while the illusions are vivid. His saving grace is that since he can't say "bottle," it's not technically him doing these things.

He keeps remembering Deku underneath him. His hands are sticky inside their binding from the blood. He hasn't even heard of villains doing anything like that, let alone himself as a middle schooler. The vision won't leave his sight even though it's not part of the illusion anymore.

When he makes it to his cell, the illusion stops.

* * *

Bakugou immediately starts retching. There's nothing inside him to throw up. Spit and stomach acid flow onto his shirt. He tries not to think of his fingers worming under Deku's bloody face but it won't leave his mind. The smell of blood and shit lingers in his nose. He banishes the image with a memory of a different mangled face - Etsuji's. For some reason, thinking about Etsuji's corpse is easier than thinking about Deku's.

"This one went too far," says Fog Guy. "He's not going to work for us as a drooling mess."

"You're wrong. We have to unmake him before we make him a villain. He must come face to face with his own brokenness and confront his own villainy, and that's a hard process. You know this, I know this, everybody in our team knows this from experience. Except maybe To— the girl, she's a freak. Bakugou, you need to eat to gain back what you just threw up."

"I'm not unmade!" Bakugou says. "I want to murder you lunatics more than ever. I'll murder your families too! Literally nothing you've done has changed me in the slightest." But something _has _changed. Whether they wanted to or not, they've made him care about Deku.

_Strong, beautiful Deku, always ready to save people even when he was hopelessly outmatched. I only thought of him as an obstacle before. He was trying to make himself look better than me despite his obvious inferiority. Now… I hope he's still alive. It's a dumb hope, since a world with Deku would be too convenient. What kind of world wouldn't have me face the consequences for telling him to kill himself?_

_Once I get out of here, I'll visit his grave at least. None of my twisted and overlapping memories involve that. Was I too scared of facing what I did, or did I just think of Deku as too far beneath me even when dead? Maybe the lack of funeral and graveyard memories mean he's still alive. But then again, somebody like me, somebody who would do these things, might not be the kind of person to have visited a grave._

_What else can I do? Send money to his family? Kiss the stone? God, what is wrong with me, getting sentimental like this. I'll visit his grave, once, and that's it. And I can still become the greatest hero, even if I give a shit about that nerd. It won't hold me back. I don't need to visit anybody else's grave, just Deku's. _

Nomu pulls Bakugou's head back, interrupting his reverie, while Fog Guy tries to clean off his shirt. Bakugou bites at Nomu's hand. The skin's so tough he almost breaks his teeth. Now that he's done retching, he's starving. His mind wanders to images of rice, fish, tempura, and… Deku, lying there with the skin off his face, bleeding onto the floor. Hunger disappears again. How long can that stick in his mind?

"Keep on not cooperating, and we'll have to feed you by force. I'll let you go this time because of your stomach issues, but we can't have you wasting away in here. I need you at your best for our propaganda," says Hand Face. Bakugou doesn't answer because he's trying not to retch again.

When Bakugou sees Hand Face motioning to Nomu to start another illusion, he fights through his disgust. "Let me eat, then," he says. Anything to delay the next illusion.

Fog Guy begins a pot of ramen noodles with an egg and some broccoli. Looks like there's a mini-fridge and a microwave behind the bar. Watching and smelling the ingredients has Bakugou salivating. He fidgets against his restraints. "Bottle," he whispers, just to make sure the food is real.

When the ramen comes out of the microwave he's overcome with hunger pangs. The smell is heavenly. Fog Guy walks over to him with the bowl and chopsticks. As much as he needs that food, if Fog Guy takes his restraints off to eat he'll try and fight them all and escape instead. Fog Guy doesn't. Instead, he dips the chopsticks in the bowl, grabs some noodles, and raises them to Bakugou's mouth. Like he's an infant. No fucking way. Bakugou can't submit to something so humiliating. He wants to yell at him or bite him, but he finds his mouth already full of noodles against his will.

"Bo'le," he says around his food. So he's not in an illusion, but his body still acts out of his control. His desperation for food is outweighing his conscious pride.

"What was that?" asks Fog Guy.

Bakugou swallows the noodles. "Nothing," he says. Instead of swearing at him, he stares needily at the bowl.

Fog Guy brings another morsel of dripping noodles to Bakugou's mouth. He slurps it up. If somebody asked Bakugou before this all started if he would ever let somebody feed him, he would have punched them in the face. As he slurps the noodles, they flick broth onto his face, his shirt, and Fog Guy's clothes and metal parts. Bakugou can't control himself and eat slower. With his restraints, he can't wipe himself off, so he looks like a baby who can't eat right.

He empties the bowl in a minute and still feels ravenous, but now he has the self control not to ask for more. Even another illusion would be better than that. Before they give him one, they add a final insult by ordering Nomu to wipe his face off with a small, white rag. Like he's two years old. And if he resists he'll only look more infantile, showing off just how helpless he is. He swears to himself, _the people who see me like this will not be allowed to live_. _The mental image of spilled food being wiped off my cheeks while I sit bound in a chair will be purged from the world._ When Nomu finishes, the next illusion begins.


	8. Chapter 8

Content warning for rape and gore

* * *

Bakugou writes a mental list: _Things the villains have ruined for me._

Number one: his bed at home. _After I escape from their lair, I'm not gonna want to wake up in this fucker any time soon! _

Number two: breakfast with his family_._ Bakugou can't concentrate on the same quips, threats, and arguments, repeated dozens of times. _It's like watching the same episode of a TV show over and over again, only after the show you know you're gonna do something horrible. The last horror hasn't even left my mind yet! _

Number three: the walk to middle school_, though I guess that's more of a ruined memory than a ruined thing I'll continue doing - It's not like I was planning on ever going back to that pit of mediocrity anyway. _

Number four: memories of his classmates_, though they weren't that great in the first place. I wanted to forget those losers. Still, good to keep track of all the shit the villains are making me swallow._

And then, of course, at the end of the class, he tells Deku to kill himself.

Bakugou wouldn't tell him that now. If he could go back in time for real, not as part of an illusion, he wouldn't even burn Deku's notebook. He might give Deku some shit, but he wouldn't do those things anymore.

In the illusion body, Bakugou feels something they haven't made him feel before. Arousal. God fucking _damnit _he does _not _like where this is headed. "You guys go on without me. I have some more lessons I want to teach this shitty nerd in private," his body says.

They leave. Bakugou once again tackles Deku to the floor. Deku thrashes and kicks to try to get away. More arousal. Bakugou flashes through regrets. _I should have asked for more food when I was outside the illusion. I should have gone to the bathroom again. I should have done something to delay this further. _

Bakugou's body pulls its pants down. Deku screams. That sound! He can't stand it in his ears, taking over his brain the way the illusion takes over his body. There has to be a way out of here. He's not going to sit and watch himself rip at Deku's clothes. No matter how much force of will he applies, he can't make his eyelids move a single millimeter closer together. He tries to think of something, anything, a vivid mental image that will dispel the world in front of him. Of course, all the memories that come up are terrible. But they're better than watching this.

He focuses on a recent one, when he was tearing the skin off Deku's face. How his fingers would slip off the bit of skin he was grabbing because they were too wet from the blood. How Deku choked and coughed less and less over time as he bled out. The blood soaked into his clothes, got under Bakugou's fingernails, and stained the carpet.

There are only so many times Bakugou can replay ripping apart Deku's face before it gets hard to focus on and his mind heads back to the present. His body feels the evil pleasures of the illusion. He wouldn't have sex with Deku like this; if he had sex with Deku it would be like-

He picks another memory, of winning the sports tournament but not feeling victory because Todoroki went easy on him. Skinning Deku was definitely fake but he doesn't know if this one was real. When Todoroki first encased him in the wall of ice, he couldn't breathe or move, just like he can't move his body by his own will now. But he was able to blast out of it with his Quirk.

Todoroki had no respect for Bakugou. He cared about Deku more even though Deku was weaker! No matter how hard Bakugou fought him, Todoroki wouldn't use his flames against him. Even when Bakugou kicked his ass he still held back like he was fighting a child. _Why wouldn't he fight me all-out? He was the strongest classmate, the one I looked forward the most to beating in a real fight._ When Bakugou won, he was furious. He wanted to keep fighting so he could make Todoroki take him seriously. The teachers had to lock him up. He was trapped, just like he is now. How far would he have gone, though, against a defeated Todoroki? Would he have killed him? Tortured him? Would he have done what he's doing now, to Deku?

The welcome fabric of Best Jeanist draws him away from Deku. Once again it's a short trip to the slammer. The car ride isn't stimulating enough. He finds his mind drawn back to the classroom with him and Deku, sometimes with Deku's fingers broken, sometimes with his face skinned, sometimes with Bakugou getting sick pleasure out of it all. Once he gets to jail, the illusion ends.

* * *

This time, Bakugou's quiet inside the bar. They went too far, after going too far the time before and the time before that. There's nothing left to say. He just has to wait until the right opportunity to kill them all.

_Maybe they _have _revealed who I really am, and I'll torture them the way they had me torture Deku… though not like in the last illusion._

"I think he liked that one. Look at how he isn't insulting us," says Fog Guy. These people are complete lunatics who have no idea how human behavior works.

"Let's bring the others in, then. We can show them how he's progressed. Let him join the team. How would you like that, Bakugou?" says Hand Face.

Bakugou stares at him and doesn't speak. Hand Face can interpret that however he wants. He walks over and takes off the shackles. Now Bakugou's just bound by a bunch of seatbelts to the chair. He's not an idiot, though; he knows using his Quirk right this second would be counterproductive.

Fog Guy opens his head wide onto the bar floor. Nomu leaves through it. A bunch of freaks and losers step out. There's the bastard who turned Bakugou into a little ball. He's on Bakugou's list of people who, if Bakugou gets the chance to attack them, won't have anything left for the police to arrest. Lizard Man comes out too, and the man with a black bodysuit with grey on the top half of his head. A girl around Bakugou's age flashes a crazy smile. How desperate do you have to be to team up with somebody with that kind of look on her face? Frankenstein's Monster also shows up.

_If I were the League of Villains_, thinks Bakugou, _I wouldn't show his face to the new recruits._

Once everybody's settled in, Hand Face asks again if Bakugou will join. It's like he _enjoys_ failure.

The crowd of villains waiting to hear him speak brings back some of his old confidence. He swears at them all.

Hand Face turns on the TV. The screen shows the teachers from UA. It's some kind of press conference. They look downtrodden and apologetic. Bakugou listens for when they mention their plan to get him back, but it never comes. They're just leaving it in the hands of the police. How many days, weeks, months will the police take? He can't just sit here and go crazy! The slightest whisper of "bottle" escapes his lips. This is all real.

Hand Face starts talking and refuses to stop. God damn, what is he, a politician? His speech never ends! It's all boring, pseudo-philosophical drivel. At the end, though, he says two actually useful things. The first is that Bakugou's about to be untied. What an idiot, but Bakugou can't tell him that until he's standing on his own two feet. Hand Face is basically unpinning a grenade and swallowing it. The second is a name, Dabi. Bakugou thinks, _Up until now, he's been referring to people in vague terms. I guess in case I escape and give information to the police. Wow, he really thinks I'm on his side now. That or he's gonna kill me, but I doubt he would go through all that work to kidnap me just to kill me. He'd botch it anyway._

While they give more monologues, Bakugou rubs his aching wrists. He steels himself for the upcoming battle. There are so many thoughts he can't let slip into his mind to distract him. Memories of the things they put him through, feelings about Deku, hunger, thirst, and ache from being kept in the same position for so long. He can't just wait while they keep talking forever. He moves to get up, but once again sees Deku's bloody face in front of his eyes and hears Deku's screams on top of their constant yakking.

He focuses on the one thing they haven't ruined for him: All Might. Even in this pit of horrors, thinking about All Might's strength banishes the fear and nausea to the back of his head.

Magician Guy is still talking when Bakugou leaps from his chair and explosively punches Hand Face with all his strength. The hand drops from his face and rolls on the floor.

Bakugou yells at Hand Face, showing that Hand Face hasn't gotten to him. That he's only mad at Hand Face for talking too much and nothing else. Instead of memories of torturing Deku, memories of looking up to All Might as a kid flood through him. Watching him on TV and YouTube, pretending to be him with his friends, begging for the latest action figures. Nothing they've done to him changed _those_ memories.

Hand Face looks down at his hand on the floor and mutters about his father. Even though Bakugou didn't hurt Hand Face enough physically, he's glad he hurt him on some level.

The television shows more of the interview, where Aizawa tells the crowd about Bakugou's strong ideals. Some part of him thought that after all he did to Deku (_how much did I do?_) the teachers hated him. Now he sees they're on his side.

Every move Bakugou makes contributes to his mask of not being affected by what he's seen. When thoughts of the illusions threaten to resurface, he imagines All Might punching Hand Face away.

Hand Face begs some kind of master for power. Bakugou thought Hand Face was the one calling the shots. At first he thinks, _How pathetic, relying on a master_. Then memories shoot through his head of relying on Hand Face to eat and even go to the bathroom. They're both pathetic, then, but Hand Face is extra pathetic for being a villain on top of it all. More memories overcome Bakugou. The nasty snapping sound of Deku's knuckles as he split them backwards. Telling Deku over and over to kill himself. Bakugou stops thinking about Hand Face's weakness and focuses again on All Might's strength.

He wants to punch them all until the memories disappear. They chatter with him a bit more, basically calling him an intransigent blockhead. Bakugou considers his situation. How can he defeat them? Fog Guy could always warp more enemies in or out, so he has to be the first to go.

A knock on the door interrupts Bakugou's thoughts. A familiar voice announces a pizza delivery. Could it be?

It is. All Might punches through the wall.

Bakugou feels ashamed of how relieved he is. He tells All Might he had the situation under control, desperately trying to save his dignity — no, _regain _his dignity, since Hand Face stole every shred. Kamui Woods follows him. Bakugou's confused because part of him thinks, _Didn't Kamui kick the bucket?_ He knows _that time_ was an illusion, but it felt so real, with such a long cleanup time for Kamui's extended limbs. Those limbs now easily envelop every villain in the bar. Seeing good triumph, and being on the side of good, feels almost foreign now. All Might and some old guy prevent the villains with Quirks that could destroy wood from hurting Kamui.

Fog Guy tries to bring in a bunch of Nomu and then announces that they're all gone. Good, Bakugou never wants to see another of their faces — if the fronts of those nasty heads with exposed brains could even be called faces.

Edgeshot walks in, immobilizes Fog Guy, and gives a name to each villain. The heroes are winning, so Bakugou never has to think about the last few days again. He can get on with his life. Just pretend this never happened and all his dignity is still intact… and, someday, visit Midoriya's grave.

Then, near the beginning of another of Hand Face's endless monologues, several black, oily discs appear in midair. A Nomu crawls through each one. Bakugou tenses up. The heroes can still win this, right? His legs shake. More and more Nomu, an endless parade, teleport into the bar and the area around it.

Bakugou feels the urge to burp. A horrible taste fills his mouth, like engine grease. He tries to cough it out but it only grows, reaching down his throat and around his head in an instant. It's the sludge monster all over again. Before he can shake off being frozen in horror and try to fight it, the slime retracts from around and inside him. The bar is gone, replaced with the dust and rubble of a destroyed building.


	9. Chapter 9

A guy with an ugly black helmet on his face and pipes attached to his neck says Bakugou's name. Bakugou's so confused. Where the hell is he? Is this another illusion? He looks behind him and sees the villains from the bar emerging from black slime portals. Helmet Head gives a speech at Hand Face for a while (_is that where he gets his love of speeches from?_) until All Might arrives again.

He knows how the illusion will go. They couldn't make a realistic illusion with Hand Face and the nutcase brigade defeating All Might, so they brought this other character in. He'll destroy All Might to show Bakugou a lesson about how villains are the real strong ones. Bakugou wonders, _Am I still in that fucking bar with Kamui Woods, or did the illusion start before then?_

Sure enough, All Might and Helmet Head trade blows. All Might gets knocked back through a building in the distance. Bakugou wants to stay cool and detached because he knows he's in an illusion, but seeing his idol tossed around makes him run forward and call out All Might's name. Or he guesses the illusion's control of his body made him do that. The one person not tainted by the illusions is being ripped away from him.

"Bottle," he mutters, but it's possible they heard him one of the other times and know he says that to see if he's in an illusion. He wants to be in one right now. All Might getting pummeled can't be real.

Helmet Head instructs Hand Face to grab Bakugou and escape. All the villains quit watching the fight. They stare at Bakugou. He sizes up his enemies. Three of them rush at him at once: Bubaigawara, Toga, and Sako. No time to attack or think, just dodge up, dodge to the side, shoot between a half-destroyed wall and Toga's knife. He can't aim his explosions _at_ anybody; he's too busy aiming them so the recoil shoots him away from grasping hands.

His explosions get bigger as he grows sweatier from fighting, but so does the number of villains. Five on one, and he doesn't know how long adrenaline can keep him going. A loud crackling sounds in the distance but he can't afford to look until the villains around him stop attacking and stare.

A colossal mound of ice extends from behind a concrete wall. Three kids launch from the top: Iida, Kirishima… and Deku.

Now he knows he's in a simulation. Deku is the focal point yet again, not All Might like he thought. Deku's face shifts, going from normal to bloody to screaming in pain to crying.

Kirishima reaches his hand down to Bakugou. How long has it been since he saw Kirishima? Three days — or a dozen lifetimes? Earlier, when he thought All Might was the only one the illusions hadn't taken away, he was wrong. He doesn't want to get near Deku and Kirishima just to hurt them, but seeing a chance to finally escape and not burden All Might compels him to blast from the ground. Bakugou grasps the outstretched hand.

So now the villains are putting Kirishima into their simulation, taking people away from him until he has nobody left. What's Bakugou gonna do to Kirishima? Sure he's said some mean things, but he would never hurt the guy. Part of him wants to drop back to the villains so he can get away from Deku and Kirishima. Instead, he uses his explosions to boost them further away from the fight.

The three of them walk toward Deku's other friends, turning through streets. If this isn't a simulation, is Deku alive? But it has to be, because no villain would be able to hit All Might like that. A screen shows the battle to a crowd of people in the street. All Might turns into a gaunt skeleton of a man with a tattered uniform. Bakugou thinks, _Looks fake to me. _He takes small footsteps away from Deku and Kirishima, hoping not to hurt them but knowing it's only a matter of time. Every time he looks at Deku, Deku's screams echo in his head.

With a final massive punch, All Might destroys Helmet Head, causing his helmet to fall away. Underneath is a bruised face with no eyes, nose, or mouth. All Might stands one last time as his muscled self and then turns into the thin man again. So All Might defeated the villains after all.

Could he be outside a simulation? He wants to be free, but he doesn't want it to be real that he was the one who hindered All Might enough that All Might became that thin guy. They could always be torturing him with that, or with how if he puts two and two together, All Might appears to have passed his powers on to Deku instead of him.

"Bottle," he says, but that proves nothing. Deku looks at him funny.

He has to say something that would never be said in a simulation. They want to bring out the villain in him who doesn't give a shit about anybody else, so he has to say something that completely counters that. If he's in a simulation, it won't matter. And if he isn't in a simulation…

"Midoriya, I love you," he says. Overwhelmed with emotion, he wraps his arms around Deku and kisses him. After a moment, Deku leans in and kisses him back.

This isn't an illusion.

He should break off now that he knows, but he lingers against Deku's soft lips for another second, savoring the affection and warmth after so much horror has lodged itself in his heart.

Deku rubs his hands up and down Bakugou's back. Bakugou stops. He can't go further, can't have them explore each other with hands. The fear of hurting Deku again makes him back away.

What the fuck did he just _do_?

He looks around to see if anybody is watching. If they are, he has to kill them. Everybody else is still looking at the screen, thank goodness. Except Deku. If he knocks out Deku right now, will he forget? What excuse can—

"What does this mean?" asks Deku.

"Nothing! Go away. You still don't match up to me. I'll fight you later!" He barrels away through the crowd. When he looks behind him, Midoriya isn't following. Good.


	10. Chapter 10Epilogue

Bakugou holds himself together while the police question him. Mostly he tells the truth, but a few lies to save his dignity can't hurt. They only need to know the details that will help them catch the villains anyway. When they're done, he stops at the nearest food place, a ramen joint. He's starving and wants to order but seeing all the noodles, just like the ones he had to be fed by the villains, makes him back out. The next place is Italian, more noodles, no thanks. Finally, he enters a mizutaki restaurant only to find the villains took his wallet. Of course. He rushes home and raids the fridge instead. The kitchen table unnerves him so he eats on the front steps.

It feels strange to be in control of his own actions and able to move around. He can't sit still, though, because every time he does the memories return. On his way to training, Kirishima asks him what happened before the rescue. He says the villains just put him to sleep and talked to him when he was awake. That he could have handled them on his own, even if the heroes never came.

Kirishima wants to train with him but Bakugou shakes him off. He doesn't want to be around people. More chances for him to lose control of himself and break their finger bones. He doesn't say that, though; he insults Kirishima and tells him he needs to train alone if he wants to actually improve. Kirishima can't know he was affected by the villains. Nobody can know. Once he's alone, he repeats "bottle" every few minutes just to be sure.

He trains until late into the night, until his arms are shaking and can barely tap a punching bag. His hands are raw from constant explosions. If he keeps punching and kicking, he doesn't have to think. When he aims a half-hearted slap at the bag and doesn't even hit it, he knows it's time to go home. It's a long walk with short steps, and he can't help but get hit by all the thoughts he spent his day avoiding.

Thoughts of pushing a boy out the window and killing him over and over again. Of tasting his blood. Of skinning him alive. Of - of-.

_It's not my fault. I wouldn't do that! _He wants to believe it. _But I did tell him to kill himself_.

All the torture and murder felt so real, almost moreso than his actual life. And then the reality turned out to also be horrible - he made All Might retire. All Might picked Deku as his successor, even though Bakugou was stronger. Weakling Deku, back when Deku was Quirkless and even more weak.

When Bakugou enters the door, his mom screams at him. She slaps him for getting kidnapped and worrying her so much. Bakugou can't muster the energy to do more than mutter at her to go to hell.

He trudges to bed and figures after all that training, he'll fall asleep easily. But as much as his body begs him to sleep, his eyes stay open. Did All Might pass him over for succession because he was weak enough to get kidnapped? He pulls his blankets onto the floor and lies under them, not wanting to wake up in his bed again. How accurate were those illusions? If he'd felt worse that day, been grumpy or stressed, would he have pushed Deku?

He tosses and turns, thinking about his fingers sticky with Deku's blood. Then he remembers his arms around Deku and their lips together. He wants to get away from that memory too, but he finds himself able to lie still for once. So he keeps replaying it in his head, Deku's strong arms and warm body, until he finally sleeps.

* * *

This is the final chapter. Thank you for reading! I've already started more psychological fuckery in a new fic - I hope you like dark villain!Midoriya : )

Read the first chapter of A Room Full of Your Posters by clicking on my profile now!

_The slime villain didn't attack. Bakugou never needed rescuing. No wondrous event proved he deserved All Might's Quirk. He was still desperate to know whether a Quirkless boy could become a hero._

_If only there were some way to get All Might's attention..._


End file.
